hey i want to make a pneumatic cannon but i want to be able to fire it at a distance and i think i am going to use a sprinculer valve but would it be worth it to mod so it is pneumatic and figure out a way to trigger it from afar. how much do pneumatic sprinkler valves outperform electric ones?

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You'll easily notice the difference in power. Why do you want to fire it remotely anyway? Make it with the right materials and you'll be fine.

If you want to fire it remotely with pneumatic operation, you'd have to have a long hose with a reasonably sized pilot valve on the end, probably a 1/2" ball valve would do the trick as a blowgun wont.

well i want to make a version of spudtech's "thunderpipe" so i can shoot whatever i wanted to and also i want to scare squirrels away from my bird feeder and i was thinking what if i used 2 sprinkeler valves and have to main one pneumatic and use another one as a pilot valve and have that one electric

Well if you had a 1" sprinkler valve piloted by a 3/4" sprinkler valve piloted by electric solenoid, that'd be far better than a blowgun. If you're willing to pay an extra $10 or so, there's no reason why you can't do it.

If you do that (two valve idea) it will work well.
But unless you use wireless remote to actuate the pilot it will need a wire running to it.
If it has a wire it almost might as well use a cable to pull or press a blow-nozzle on a pneumatic pilot one.

Or better use one and use a servo or remote activated larger solenoid to press a blow-nozzle pilot...Seems about as easy, and just one sprinkler valve.(?)

LOL when i read the purpose I invisioned a giant bug zapper contraption maybe.

i was thinking i would duct tape the cannon to a stand so then i could put a ear of corn in the end of the barrel and when a sqiurel went to eat the corn i could set it off and the squirel would be scared shitless but not harmed

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Last edited by gabeb123 on Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

I recently worked on a house and the people had just moved in and invited us for lunch.
Thing is they had a few squirrel running around...then more and more...it was an infestation of them!
...made everyone's skin crawl seeing a whole horde of them in such a small yard.
Definately strange...I joked with them that there were definately enough to make a meal...but really they seemed like rats!!!

I suggest maybe building a piston valve like MrCrowley's in "How-to" sect. and pilot it with electric solenoid on sprinkler valve, unless you just want a quick easy build.

gabeb123 wrote:i was thinking i would duct tape the cannon to a stand so then i could put a ear of corn in the end of the barrel and when a sqiurel went to eat the corn i could set it off and the squirel would be scared shitless.

if i wasnt such a nice person i could figure out a way to get the squirel to sqeez down the barrel and launch it 300 feet into the air. that would be cinda cruel.

Discussion of harming humans or animals on this forum is prohibited.

So even your first idea would qualify, as a decent burst of air could easily hurt the squirrel quite seriously.

Another way to fire it remotely would be to use a ball valve instead of a blowgun, set the ball valve up for spring actuation and use a long piece of wire to trigger the spring remotely.

Basically you modify the valve handle so it opens via a spring. Then you work out some trigger mechanism to keep the ball valve closed, and then when you release the wire, the spring forces the ball valve open.

In picking on squirrels, one year while camping someone (not me) had tied a loaf of french bread to a tree limb so it hung about 18 inches off the ground.

squirrels would jump on it. It was long and just tied in the middle. It would flip over so the squirrel would scramble and it would flip over until the squirrel eventually got dumped off. Lots of scolding later, they tried again.. It was hours of entertainment.

Long loaf of dried bread. tied in the middle hung from a tree limb. Several squirrels.. lots of fun.

for the application you want it for, electric would be just fine imo after all the thunderpipe one spudtech is electrically actuated and i'm assuming you want to trigger it from a good distance(>30') so i would go electric because a 30ft hose is much harder to deal with then some thin 30ft wire plus the time it takes to create a pressure differntial in a 30ft+ hose may lower its performance enough to even the two out also you won't have to by another sprinkler valve

i was thinking i would use a pneumatic sprinkular valve then have a hose leading to a electric one. i was thinking that a electric sprinkular valve would be a way big enuf to work as a great pilot valve.